• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Fire starting

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Charred pure cotton cloth - monk's cloth, flannel and Terry cloth all fast, good. Amadeus - Fomes fomentarius not as good as chaga - Inonotus obliquuous ( true tinder fungus). Thin slivers of mullein pith (mullein non-native plant). Charred punky woods, weeds including mullein. Jerusalem artichoke inner pith, sunflower, teasel, cattail stalk. Old man's beard- lichen. Milkweed hair, cattail puffs, cotton wood tree cotton in the spring, thistle down all burn up too soon in a flash. Milkweed pod ovum best used to ignite a coal extender. The oaken I used in giant tinder tubes also makes good tinder most as does teased cotton bolls freshly harvested.
 
Someone mentioned oakum earlier but with a different spelling. If it's the same thing as what I know of as oakum, it is typically made with tar and is used to fill in the cracks of log lean-tos and other cabin type structures to block the wind. If it's the same thing, I'm sure the tar will roar to life if it catches a spark.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper
 
The thick rope of pure cotton, sometimes netted with a braiding is used to stuff into cracks and the tar or other caulk pushed over to seal and waterproof. May have spellings of "ocum" and "oaken" mistaken. Usnea is the lichen like "old man's beard". Marcassite and flint works nest on Amadeou (not amadeous which spell check insists on wrongly inserting) or tinder fungus (Fomes fonentarius). The Ice man, Otzi had character. Used today and in demand for healing which drove up prices and hurt supply.
 
When I was a kid growing up in north Georgia, we had 75 pine trees in our large yard. My Pop, brother and me would spend two or more weeks raking pine needles and picking up cones every year. I always ended up with blisters on my hands.

We saved a lot of the cones. They make great fire starting tinder.
I do the same thing. I start fires in my woodstove with pine needles, pine cones and small branches from the pine trees in my back yard. No need for paper at all.
 
Someone mentioned oakum earlier but with a different spelling. If it's the same thing as what I know of as oakum, it is typically made with tar and is used to fill in the cracks of log lean-tos and other cabin type structures to block the wind. If it's the same thing, I'm sure the tar will roar to life if it catches a spark.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper
That was me, and yes, it's the same stuff.
 
The thick rope of pure cotton, sometimes netted with a braiding is used to stuff into cracks and the tar or other caulk pushed over to seal and waterproof. May have spellings of "ocum" and "oaken" mistaken. Usnea is the lichen like "old man's beard". Marcassite and flint works nest on Amadeou (not amadeous which spell check insists on wrongly inserting) or tinder fungus (Fomes fonentarius). The Ice man, Otzi had character. Used today and in demand for healing which drove up prices and hurt supply.
Historic oakum was pine-tarred hemp fibre, stripped from the worn-out standing rigging of ships, used for caulking decks and hulls. Modern caulking cotton does the same job, but is not the same thing. I suspect it would work great in one of those tube things. Real oakum would go up like a torch.
Jay
 
Someone mentioned oakum earlier but with a different spelling. If it's the same thing as what I know of as oakum, it is typically made with tar and is used to fill in the cracks of log lean-tos and other cabin type structures to block the wind. If it's the same thing, I'm sure the tar will roar to life if it catches a spark.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper
Good post. Another thing: I think you must surely be a kind and thoughtful person.
 
Back
Top